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MARCIA AND THE 
MAJOR 

A STORY OF LIFE IN THE ROCKIES 


#L/' 


y by 


L/'H ARBOUR 

i) 




NEW YORK: 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
PUBLISHERS 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

AUG. 30 1901 

Copyright entry 

(sh* iuf,. 

CLASS a- XX c. Nt#. 
COPY 3. 


Copyright, 1901 , 

By T. Y. CROWELL & CO. 


TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON. 
BOSTON, U. S. A. 


CONTENTS 


The Major 

PAGE 

I. 

Cloud Haven 

II. 

Marcia . . 

III. 

Marcia’s Pa 

IV. 


v. 

Evening Journeys 22 

VI. 

The Lady of the House 26 

VII. 

The Major’s “Piece of Poetry” 33 

VIII. 

A Boarder at Cloud Haven 38 


Doris . . . 

IX. 


3 


4 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

X. 

An Interesting Advertisement 49 

\ 

XI. 

A Caller at Cloud Haven 56 

XII. 

How Don Returned 62 

XIII. 

For the Major * 69 

XIV. 

In Cloud Haven Shelter 75 

XV. 

Marcia’s Great-Uncle 78 


Marcia and the Major, 


i. 

THE MAJOR. 

The Major was a Forty-Niner. That means 
he was one of the men who had crossed the 
great western plains in the year 1849, bound 
for the newly-discovered gold and silver mines 
in the Rockies. 

It was worth while to hear the Major tell of 
that trip from Missouri to Colorado. The 
Major had ridden most of the way astride the 
back of a fleet-footed pony, while his young wife 
and their tiny baby girl had ridden in the big, 
lumbering wagon. The Major’s wife sat on the 
high front seat of the wagon with her baby girl 
propped up safely with pillows by her side. 
There were two or three cows to be driven 
behind the wagon, and the Major drove them 
on his pony, while his wife drove the pair of big 
bony horses hitched to the wagon. They were 
weeks and months crossing. 

“And the trip was too much for the little 


6 


6 


MARCIA AND TEE MAJOR. 


one,” the Major would say on the rare occasions 
when he spoke of his wife and baby. “ She 
never was over an’ above strong, an’ I’ve wished 
a million times that I had put off crossin’ the 
plains until she was older an’ stronger. It was 
a tumble hot summer that year. An’ only them 
that knows from experience can tell just how 
blazin’ hot it gits out there on the plains along 
in July and August. You can travel for miles 
an’ miles without seein’ a single tree, an’ all the 
shade we could git in was the scanty shade cast 
by the shadder of the wagon. Ruthie, the baby, 
got thinner an’ thinner. We went sixty-five 
miles out of our way to git her to a doctor ; -but 
the stuff he give her didn’t do her any good, 
and her ma an’ me didn’t have any little gal 
when we got out here to the mountains.” 

The Major’s eyes would grow moist, and his 
voice unsteady, when he told this part of his 
life-story, even when he was a bent and grizzled 
old man who had lived in the mountains so 
long that he was called an Old-Timer. 

Down in the shade and silence of Moss Rock 
Canon, near a solitary deserted cabin with a 
sunken roof, was a grave close to the bank of 
a noisy little mountain stream that broke in 
foamy waves over gray and shining bowlders. 
This deserted cabin was seventy-five miles from 
the Major’s home away up the rocky slope of 
Baldy Mountain, but every spring and fall the 
Major came to the lonely grave and put it in 
what he called “ apple-pie order.” It was 


THE MAJOR. 


7 


inclosed within a neat little wall of moss- 
covered stones picked up in the canon, and 
there was a scanty growth of grass in the soil 
that the Major had brought in bags a distance 
of more than a mile and spread over and around 
the grave of Ruthie’s mother. 

“We done our first housekeeping here in 
the mountains in that tumble-down old cabin,” 
the Major would say. “ It was a lonesome sort 
of a place; but it was July when we come 
there and the canon was lookin’ its best, and I 
reckoned on strikin’ it rich that summer and 
then goin’ hack to our old home an’ our kin- 
folks in the States. But things didn’t go my 
way. The minin’ claims I staked out didn’t 
pan out as I reckoned they would. Fact is, 
they didn’t pan out as much as I put into them 
if I counted my time anything, an’ when winter 
come I was poorer than when I begun to pros- 
pect there. And when spring come I had lost 
more than any mine on earth is wuth, for 
Ruthie’s ma was layin’ in that grave out across 
the Saranac Creek.” 

It would take a good many pages for me to 
tell you of all of the good deeds the Major had 
done “ for Ruthie’s sake.” The Major had been 
a good deal of a rover for a long time after 
Ruthie and her mother had gone from him, 
and whenever he had been where there were 
children he had always “ taken to them.” 

“ I think the Major would git up in the dead 
o’ night an’ crawl five miles on his hands an’ 


8 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


knees to help a kid out o’ trouble,” said big 
Hank Morris, who would himself have been the 
last man in the world to have allowed a child 
to suffer. 

“You remember,” continued Hank, “how 
the Major, one o’ the most peaceable men that 
ever drawed breath, went stalkin’ down into 
Camp Fancy when he heard that there was a 
man there named Jake Tripp who was cruel 
mean to his three little motherless children? 
I tell ye if the Major didn’t lay down the law 
to Jake Tripp now! Of course Jake was a 
big coward. Any man who will abuse wimmen 
an’ children is a coward ; an’ when the Major 
bore down on Jake’s cabin, an’ grabbed him an’ 
shuk him, an’ told him all he lotted on doin’ if 
he ever abused one o’ them children any more, 
I tell you Jake begged off for all he was wuth, 
an’ his poor little younguns got good treatment 
after that. 

“ An’ when J ake got drowned over there in 
Cinnamon River the Major went around among 
the boys an’ raised money to send the three 
youngsters back to their gran’mammy in Ohio ; 
an’ the Major took ’em down to Denver himself, 
an’ got their tickets, an’ put ’em in a parlor car 
in charge of the conductor, an’ started ’em off 
with candy ’an nuts an’ bananers an’ other stuff 
enough to kill em ’fore their gran’mammy could 
rescue ’em. That’s the Major all over ! ” 


CLOUD HAVEN . 


9 


II. 


CLOUD HAVEN. 

For years the home of the Major had been 
in a snng little cabin of two rooms, built by his 
own hand, half way up the rocky slope of old 
Baldy Mountain. 

Here the Major lived alone. 

Far down in the narrow gulch below this little 
house perched on a shelf of rock, far down a 
winding trail, was a small mining-camp of forty 
or fifty rude cabins scattered up and down 
on the rocky banks of a noisy stream called 
Roaring Fork. The name of the camp was 
Silver Queen, which was a very high-sounding 
name for such a poverty-stricken little place. 
But the time had been when it was thought 
that Silver Queen would be one of the greatest 
mining-camps in the world, and the whole gulch 
had been alive with busy, eager, hopeful men 
digging into the granite ledges for the hidden 
veins of silver that very few of them ever 
found. 

Silver Queen had been the cause of a very 
deceiving “ boom.” Nearly all of the hundreds 
of miners who had come to it in eager haste 


10 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


soon took their departure. They went away 
saying a good many harsh things about the 
camp, and about those who had started the 
“ boom ” that had caused so many men to come 
on a “ wild-goose chase ” to Roaring Fork Gulch. 

Most of the men went by the cabin of the 
Major when they came to the camp and when 
they left it; and some stopped to have a chat 
with the Major. He was generally sitting on 
the bench beside his cabin door, smoking his 
pipe, where he could look down upon the camp 
below. 

“ 1 could of told ye there wa’n’t no silver 
veins round here worth a body breakin’ their 
necks to try to find,” the Major would say. 
“ I’ve lived here, off an’ on, fer more than 
twenty years, an’ stiddy now goin’ on to six- 
teen years, an’ there aint a square quarter of a 
mile around here that I aint looked over an’ 
into. And I said when they started this boom 
bizness that they was startin’ it on nothin’. I 
hate to see so many folks disapp’inted, I do so. 
I guess there are a lot o’ folks down there in 
Silver Queen who are too pore to git away, and 
they’ll half starve to death if they stay. It 
makes it mighty hard fer wimmen an’ little 
folkses. Men ought to have better sense than 
to bring wimmen an’ children to sich a place as 
this. But then I reckon they thought it was 
fer the best, like I thought when I brought my 
wife an’ little Ruthie from a comfortable home 
back in old Missoury to this country.” 


CLOUD HAVEN. 


11 


But the men who looked about while they 
listened thought the Major had a pretty com- 
fortable home on Old Baldy. Strangers who 
saw the inside of the Major’s cabin, and particu- 
larly women, were surprised at its neatness and 
order. Sometimes they would speak about it. 
Then the Major would say : “ I was brought up 
to be clean an’ decent, an’ there aint no excuse 
for folks bein’ dirty with soap so cheap and 
water so plenty.” 

Truly the two rooms of the Major’s cabin 
were as clean as soap and water could make 
them, and everything was just where it should 
be. There was a big fireplace in one end of 
what the Major called his “livin’ room,” and 
it was cool enough every night in the year to 
make it pleasant to have a fire on the hearth. 
The floor was almost entirely covered with bear 
and mountain-lion skins, and in front of the 
fireplace was a rude but wonderfully comforta- 
ble couch covered with skins and gay-colored 
Navajo Indian blankets. 

There were two small windows of four lights 
each in the room ; and the fact that there were 
spotlessly white curtains before these windows, 
and that in each of them were pots of thrifty 
geraniums, had caused some of the miners to 
say, “ I declare if the Major aint a reg’lar old 
granny, an’ fussier than any old maid ! ” 

But the men did not like him any the less if 
he was an “ old granny,” and none of them ever 
refused an invitation to a meal with the Major. 


12 


MARCIA AND TEE MAJOR. 


It was sure to be a cleaner and better cooked 
meal than they would get in their own cabins. 

The Major was not at all of a poetical turn 
of mind, and it was therefore a little strange 
that he called his mountain home by the fanci- 
ful name of Cloud Haven. 

Once, when some one had asked him why he 
had given his home this name, he said, “Well, 
I dunno jess why. The name come to me one 
day when I was standin’ in my cabin door 
watchin’ the clouds floatin’ around down thar 
in the gulch above the Roarin’ Fork. You see, 
thar’s often clouds below me as well as above 
me way up here, an’ sometimes the clouds come 
right down around me ; and I have such a com- 
fortable little haven of rest up here, that I jess 
thought I’d call it Cloud Haven, even if it is 
a fancy name.” 


MARCIA. 


13 


III. 

MARCIA. 

It was at the close of a day in the early fall. 
The sun, a great flaming ball, was near to drop- 
ping behind the summit of far-away Greylock, 
and the gulch was filling with long, black 
shadows. The Major was sitting on the bench 
by his door, after having washed his few supper 
dishes and tidied up his cabin. He had cooked 
his supper over a fire in the fireplace instead of 
on the little sheet-iron stove that stood in a 
corner of the room, and now the rosy light of 
the flame on the hearth shone out through the 
cabin door. 

Night came on very fast after the flaming 
ball dropped behind the mountain. Within ten 
minutes the Major could no longer see the little 
cabins down in Silver Queen. Five minutes 
later the whole gulch was dark, and a great 
silence seemed to have fallen upon the world. 

Presently the stillness was broken by a 
sudden rising of the wind, then the Major got 
up, shivering slightly. 

“ There’ll be snow flyin’ before mornin’, even 
if it still is October. Guess I’ll go in by the 


14 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


fire. A fire in the fireplace will go good to- 
night.” 

Before the Major removed his stout boots, 
he did something that he had done many, 
many times when he was sitting down for the 
evening before his cabin fire. He went into 
the inner room and drew a small and battered 
old hair-covered trunk from underneath the 
snug bunk, filled with blankets and furry skins, 
in which he slept. 

The little old trunk, with the hair nearly all 
worn off and many heads of the brass nails 
missing, had come across the plains in the 
covered wagon with the Major. Unlocking it, 
the Major took out a square pasteboard box 
which he carried into the firelit room. He did 
not light his candle, but sat down in the glow 
of the flames with the box in his lap. 

Lifting off the cover of the box, he took 
from it a tiny scarlet merino baby sacque with 
scalloped edges embroidered with white floss. 
There was a little bow of satin ribbon that had 
once been white, on the collar, but now it was of 
a yellow tint because of the number of long 
years it had lain in the trunk. The bit of a 
garment looked strange in the Major’s big 
hands. 

There was a string of round blue glass beads 
in the box, with a little gold clasp on it, and 
a heart-shaped gold locket about as large as a 
silver quarter of a dollar. Opening the locket 
with the edge of one of his great thumb nails, 


MARCIA. 


15 


the Major looked down on a little circle of 
silky yellow hair in one side of the locket, and 
then at a circle of dark brown hair that filled 
the other half. There were several things in 
the box, and the Major lifted them one by one, 
— a little tin rattle, slightly rusty, with a whistle 
in the handle, some soft white baby socks, and 
a pair of tiny blue kid slippers with little blue 
silk rosettes and steel buckles on them. 

“ I remember jess as well the day I bought 
them slippers for Ruthie,” the Major said to 
himself, as he set the pair on his broad 
calloused palm. “ I remember jess how tickled 
her ma was, an’ jess how Ruthie held out her 
little paw fer ’em an’ went ‘ goo goo ’ when I 
showed ’em to her. Her ma said I was extrav- 
agant to go an’ pay a dollar an’ a quarter fer 
them slippers when I didn’t have but five dol- 
lars in the world ; but I ain’t ever been sorry 
I bought ’em, an’ ten times five dollars wouldn’t 
buy ’em of me now ” — 

“ Say there ! ” 

The Major hastily dropped the slippers and 
the other things in the box, and replaced the 
cover before he turned toward the door ; then 
he asked, “ What’s wantin’ ? ” 

“ I want you ! ” 

The Major twisted himself half-way around 
toward the open door. He saw a little girl, 
dimly revealed by the firelight. She stood on 
the stone slab below the doorstep, her hand on 
the door-frame. She had a shawl over her 


16 


MARCIA AND TEE MAJOR. 


head, pinned under her chin. Below the shawl 
a tangle of jet-black hair fell almost to a pair of 
shining black eyes. Her face was thin and of 
that reddish brown which is brought by expo- 
sure to sun and wind. She wore a faded blue- 
and-white calico dress, and shoes, as he saw 
later, but no stockings. 

“ Come in ! ” said the Major. 

The girl shook her head. “No, I can’t. I 
want you to come and go to pa.” 

“ Go to your pa — where is your pa ? ” 

“ Up the trail here a little piece,” said the 
girl, starting away. “ He’s sick and he can’t 
come no farther down without help.” 

The Major got up and went to the door, and 
said in the kindly tone in which he always 
spoke to children, “ Now you wait a little, 
sissy, and let me understand more about this.” 

“ There ain’t anything to tell, much,” said the 
girl impatiently. “We started to walk from 
Camp Gothic over to Silver Queen this morn- 
ing, and pa give out back here on the trail a 
little ways. He ain’t been well all the fall, and 
he’s awful sick now, and oh, please come ! ” 
The little girl’s voice trailed away into a sob. 
“ I’ll go right along with you, child,” said the 
Major, reaching for his hat. “ I reckon mebbe 
your pa ain’t so sick as you think he is. Like 
as hot he isn’t, so you chirk up.” 


MARCIA'S PA. 


IT 


IV. 

marcia’s pa. 

Clouds had risen with the wind, and it was 
now so dark that the Major lighted a tin lantern 
with glass sides before he started out with the 
little girl. When they had gone a short way 
from the cabin he asked her name. 

“ Marcia,” she said. 

“ Marshy, hey ? It’s a right purty name. 
And what’s your other name ? ” 

“ Ruth.” 

The Major had taken her by the hand, and 
his clasp tightened as he heard her second 
name. 

“ Ruth ? ” he said. “ That’s an even purtier 
name than Marshy. If you was my little gal 
I’d call you Ruthie.” 

“ That is what my mother used to call me,” 
she said. 

“An’ why don’t she keep on callin’ you 
Ruthie ? ” asked the Major. 

“ She’s dead.” 

The Major stooped suddenly, and took the 
little girl up in his arms. 

“ I guess mebbe I’d better carry you, sissy,” 


18 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


he said. “ The trail isn’t very wide from here 
on, and I’m afraid you might fall if you tried 
to walk in front of me or behind me. It’s 
rough, and it’s dark now.” 

He crooked his long left arm and made a 
seat, and settled her securely. 

“Now,” he said, “you put yer arm around 
my neck, then we can go easy. There ! That’s 
right. Arn’t you too heavy for me to carry ? 
You ain’t no heavier than so many pounds of 
feathers ! I could carry three little girls like 
you.” 

“You must he awful strong,” said the little 
girl. 

“ Oh, I am ! I’m a reg’lar giant ; hut I ain’t 
one o’ the kind that eats up little folkses. So 
your name is Marshy Ruth, hey ? An’ what is 
your last name ? ” 

“ My last name is Field.” 

“ Field, hey ? I knew a fam’ly of that name 
back in old Missoury. You got kinfolks back 
there ? ” 

“I hav’n’t got any kinfolks any place — 
— just pa.” 

“No gran’mammy nor gran’daddy ? ” 

“No,” said little Marcia Ruth. 

“Well, you are mighty bad off fer kinfolks ! ” 
said the Major. “ Ev’ry little gal ort to have 
at least one gran’mammy an’ gran’daddy — that 
is if they are of the right sort that lets a little 
girl do just about as she pleases. If I had 
a little gran’ daughter of about your heft I 


MARCIA'S PA. 


19 


reckon she could lead me around and make 
me play with her about as she had a mind to. 
What’s yer pa goin’ to Silver Queen for? ” 

“I don’t know. Pa’s nearly always going to 
some place.” 

“An’ he’s goin’ to Silver Queen jess to be 
a-goin, hey? You tell him there aint nothin’ 
for him or any other man to go to Silver Queen 
for. Silver Queen’s had its little day. Folks 
are gittin’ away from there instid of goin’ there. 
It certainly isn’t no place for a sick man to 
g°” 

They climbed on up the trail in silence for a 
few minutes ; and then the little girl said, “ It 
isn’t but a few steps farther. I remember I 
passed this awful big bowlder just after I left 
pa. Pa ! ” she called out shrilly. “ Pa ! I’m 
coming, pa, and a big kind man is coming ! ” 

The Major laughed. “ How do you know 
I’m kind?” 

“ You wouldn’t be carrying me all this way 
up hill, if you wasn’t,” the child said, after 
stopping to think about it. 

“ Oh, as for that now,” said the Major, “ I 
couldn’t help being kind to any little gal named 
Ruth, because I once had a little — hark ! ” 
Then he stopped to listen. 

“ That’s pa groaning,” said Marcia. “ He’s 
just around this curve. Coming, pa ! ” 

A moment later Marcia Ruth was standing 
down on the ground and the Major was on his 
knees and holding the lantern above the form 


20 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


of a man who had fallen in the trail in a posi- 
tion which showed he must have been too weak 
to go one step farther. He made no reply when 
the Major shook him gently, and said, “ Hello, 
here, man ? What’s the matter ? What’s the 
matter ? ” 

The Major got up and swung his lantern 
over the scene. 

An old satchel, a blanket or two, and a few 
tin cooking utensils rusty and smoke-begrimed, 
lay by the side of the man. The Major, after 
trying in vain to arouse him, spoke to the silent 
little girl. 

“ Well, Marshy, you’ll have to walk back to 
my cabin, for this time I must carry your 
pa. You must walk on ahead and carry the 
lantern.” 

The sick man evidently was not very tall, 
and he was very slight. The Major had calcu- 
lated his weight. “ He don’t weigh above a 
hundred an’ ten pounds, if he does that. I can 
trot down to the cabin with him nearly as easy 
as I carried the little gal up here.” 

After pulling the sick man to a sitting posi- 
tion, the Major spoke again to Marcia. 

“ We’ll just pile your things up here, Sissy, 
side o’ the trail an’ leave ’em here until day- 
light, ’an then I’ll come for ’em. No one will 
touch ’em in the night ; scramble them together 
the best you can.” 

Marcia did as she was bidden. Then the 
Major drew the sick man up to a standing 


MARCIA'S PA. 


21 

position, put his strong arms around his waist 
and lifted him from the ground, Marcia holding 
the lantern aloft. When she saw her father 
up in the Major’s arms, she said again, “You 
must be awful strong ! ” 

“ I’m a giant, as 1 told you ; now I am goin’ 
to lug your pa off to my castle. You trot on 
ahead an’ light the way. Stiddy, my friend, 
stiddy.” 

The sick man had begun to twist about a 
little, and once he tried to speak. “ What’s 
the — the — matter here ? ” 

“ That’s what I’d like to know,” said the 
Major ; and then he added to himself, quite to 
himself, “If all signs don’t fail there’s so 
much the matter that Marshy Ruth won’t have 
no kin at all in this world in a mighty short 
time.” 


22 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


V. 


EVENING JOURNEYS. 

The fire was still bright on the hearth when 
Marcia and the Major reached the open door of 
the cabin. The sick man had not spoken again, 
nor did he speak when the Major carried him 
in and laid him slowly down on the lounge in 
the firelight. The Major tried such restoratives 
as he had at hand, but they had no effect. Then 
he spoke to the little girl. 

“ Are you afraid to stay here alone while 
I go down to Silver Queen for the doctor? 
There’s one doctor there yet.” 

“No, I’m not,” said Marcia. “There isn’t 
anything to be afraid of in a nice, snug, strong 
cabin like this. I like your house.” 

“ Sure enough, Marshy, there isn’t ! I’ve 
lived in it, safe and sound, sixteen years.” 

“ All I’m ever afraid of is bears and catty- 
mounts,” said Marcia, “ and I guess they 
wouldn’t break in here with the door shut.” 

“ Marshy, they never once have tried to get 
in in all these years,” the Major assured her. 
“ You treat them perlitely an’ they’ll treat you 
perlitely. You stay in your place, and they’ll 


EVENING JOURNEYS. 


23 


stay in theirs. Of course if you was to go out 
an’ go to chasin’ ’em around an’ foolin’ with ’em 
they might turn on you, speshly if they had their 
little baby bears or cattymounts near by. But 
you needn’t feel one mite afraid of ’em long as 
you stay here perlitely in the cabin, and don’t 
go to the door and call ’em names! You jest 
sit quiet and look after yer sick pa.” 

The Major took up the lantern and departed. 
He had gone but a few yards from the door 
when he turned and hurried back toward the 
house. 

“ I don’t reckon that child has had a mite o’ 
supper,” said he. 

He hurriedly entered the cabin, really fright- 
ening little Marcia Ruth by his unexpected 
return. 

“ I come back to see if you had had any 
supper. Have you?” 

“ No,” she said. “ Pa was so sick we didn’t 
stop. I wanted to get to Silver Queen before 
dark.” 

Little Marcia Ruth did not tell the Major 
that there was nothing to eat in the old satchel 
but a few hard crackers and a very small piece 
of bacon. 

“ Hungry, then, ain’t you ?” asked the Major. 

“ Yes, sir,” replied Marcia frankly. 

The Major stepped to the combination of 
cupboard and pantry he had “ rigged up ” in a 
corner of the cabin, threw open the door, and 
called her there. 


24 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


“ Help yourself to anything you can find,” 
he said ; “ here’s tea and coffee, and canned stuff 
of all sorts, and sardines and dried beef, and 
honey in the comb, an’ butter an’ cold slapjacks 
an’ sody biskits an’ gingersnaps an’ a lot of 
other truck. You jess help yourself.” 

Marcia looked hungrily toward the cupboard, 
but seemed to wait for him to go. 

“Eat hearty, now,” the Major admonished 
her, lantern in hand, at the door. a There’s a 
can-opener in that table drawer. Jess rip open 
a can of anything you want. I’ll see if I can 
find anything else down to the store. If yer 
pa wakes up, jess give him his ch’ice of any- 
thing there is.” 

But when the Major was on his way down to 
the gulch he said to himself, “ I guess her pa 
won’t bother her none about anything to eat 
while I’m gone. He’s going to have the doctor 
all the same. But I’ll miss my guess if her 
pa ever eats anything more.” 

The Major did not “ miss his guess ; ” for 
when the doctor reached Cloud Haven an hour 
or more later he shook his head and said to the 
Major, >‘I doubt if he is here when daylight 
comes.” 

“ That’s just the way I figgered it,” said the 
Major. “ Poor little gal ! ” 

He nodded his head toward Marcia as he 
spoke. The Major and the doctor had found 
her sound asleep on the big fur rug before the 
fire, overcome by sleepiness and exhaustion. 


EVENING JOURNEYS. 


25 


He picked her up tenderly; and when she 
half-awoke and said she would go “ look after 
pa,” the Major said soothingly, “ There, there, 
child ! The doctor and I’ll look after pa. You 
just take your little evenin’ journey off to 
Dreamland, and you stay there until the sun 
comes peepin’ in at yer winder.” 

He carried her into the second little room, 
and laid her down on his soft, snug bunk, half 
singing and half speaking over her the words 
of the old nursery song he had sung to his 
little Ruthie in bygone days : 

“ ’Tis I who watch this baby from morn till eventide. 
The trouble and the watching I will never lay aside.” 

The Major carefully removed the worn, dust 
covered shoes from Marcia’s feet, loosened her 
dress, and covered her with a pair of blankets, 
then stooped and just touched his bearded lips 
to her childish forehead. 

“ Poor little youngster ! Poor little Marshy 
Ruth ! You jess sleep calm. You ain’t friend- 
less if you air motherless an’ so nigh fatherless 
an’ without any kin in the world! You jess 
sleep calm ! ” 

When Marcia came back from Dreamland 
her father had gone on an evening journey to 
the “ far country.” 


26 


MARCIA AND TEE MAJOR. 


VI. 


THE LADY OF THE HOUSE. 

It was four days afterward. Marcia and 
the Major were sitting at the breakfast table, 
drawn up before one of the little flowery win- 
dows in the Major’s cabin. The white curtain 
had been pushed back, and the sunshine came 
in cheerily over the tops of the geraniums. 
The Major usually ate his breakfast without 
spreading any cloth on the little pine table, but 
since Marcia had come to the cabin he had 
put one of the old Missouri table-cloths on at 
every meal. This morning he had gone even 
further; for he had taken one of the smaller 
pots of geranium, and set it exactly in the 
center of the table. He called Marcia’s atten- 
tion to it as they sat down. 

“You notice them buds on that plant?” he 
asked. “ They’ll be bustin’ out in full blossom 
before three days. That one is a pink one. 
You like flowers?” 

“ Yes, I do. Ma always had lots of flowers 
in our yard when we lived back in Ohio. I 
had a little flower-garden of my own, out- 
doors.” 


THE LADY OF THE HOUSE. 


27 


“ Did, hey ? What kind o’ posies did you 
have in it?” 

“ Marigolds and phlox and four-o-clocks and 
Black-eyed Susan,” said Marcia. 

“ Black-eyed Susan ? That was a big yaller 
flower with a velvety black eye, wa’n’t it?” 

“Yes, it was.” 

“ I remember it. My wife had it in her 
posey bed back in old Missoury. Me an’ her 
both liked flowers. I reckon our little Ruthie 
would of liked ’em if she’d lived. So you 
come from back in Ohio ? ” 

The Major had not questioned little Marcia 
much regarding her former home. She had 
been too full of grief after the death of her 
father to talk about anything, and the Major 
had done nothing but soothe and comfort her. 
But now he wanted to find out about her 
family and friends so that he could decide 
on what it was best to do in regard to her 
future. 

“Yes, we came from back in Ohio,” said 
Marcia. 

“ And you ain’t got any folks back there ? ” 

Marcia shook her head. 

“ I know you told me that night that you 
didn’t have any gran’daddy nor gran’mammy,” 
said the Major ; “ but ain’t you got any auntses 
nor uncles nor cousins nor kin of any living 
kind ? ” 

“No, pa didn’t have any brothers or sisters, 
and ma didn’t.” 


28 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


“ How long have you been out here in this 
country — do you know, Marshy ? ” 

Marcia knew. “ Most five years. We never 
lived long anywheres. Ma used to say pa was 
a rolling stone, an’ she was a rolling stone, and 
I was a little stone of the same kind.” 

“ You all jess moved from place to place 
without no rhyme or reason in it, hey ? ” said 
the Major. 

“ Pa always kept moving when we were 
back in Ohio,” answered little Marcia, with a 
hopeless sort of dreariness in her tone. “I 
guess ma and I and he have lived in a dozen 
places in the mountains. Pa seemed as if he 
wanted to be, and must be, on the go all the 
time.” 

“An’ when them kind of men get the minin’ 
fever they move more than before,” said the 
Major. “ W ell, you’ve moved about so much 
already, Marshy, mebbe you’d jess like to stay 
here with me and rest a spell. Wouldn’t it 
rest you, Marshy ? ” 

“ It’s very nice here,” replied the little girl, 
to whom good food in abundance* a snug and 
comfortable bed in which to sleep, cleanliness 
and order, were things to which she had never 
been used. She had never in all her life 
had a home so clean and comfortable as that in 
which she now found herself. 

The Major spoke again, after a moment. 

“You see, I need a little gal of about your 
size very much. I’m not nigh as young as I 


THE LADY OF THE HOUSE. 


29 


was thirty years ago, an’ I’m not nigh as spry. 
I think it would be real good to have a nimble- 
footed little gal to take steps for me, an’ help 
me wash dishes an’ keep things trim an’ slick. 
I’m great on havin’ things slick. I jess natch- 
rellj hate dirt, an’ disorder makes me straight 
oncomfortable. You an’ me together could 
jess make old Cloud Haven shine, now couldn’t 
we?” 

Marcia smiled and nodded her head. “I 
guess we jess could,” she said. 

“ Of course we can,” said the Major. “ Win- 
ter is mighty close at hand, an’ if all signs don’t 
fail it’ll be a long one an’ cold one ; but we 
two can be as snug as a bug in a rug up here. 
You and I’ll go down to Denver before it sets 
in in dead earnest, an’ lay in all kinds of winter 
provender, an’ then we’ll come back here and 
be as cosy as a couple o’ little chippy squirrels 
with a bushel o’ nuts to feed on. To be sure, 
we’ll have to be contented with each other’s 
society most o’ the time, as there may be weeks 
together when we won’t see any one but our- 
selves. The snow will be too deep an’ drifted 
for us to even go down to Silver Queen to the 
oppery or the theater or to any of the grand 
doin’s they’ll be havin’ there this winter.” 

The Major laughed at his own foolish wit ; 
and Marcia laughed too, but as if it were great 
fun. He got up and looked out of one of the 
little bright windows, down toward the forlorn 
mining-camp in the gulch below. 


30 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


“Wonder if there’s any little gals likely to 
winter there!” he said gently. “Not many 
men with little folkses are willin’ to bring ’em 
to such a place as that, an’ that is where they 
show their good sense. A minin’-camp like 
that ain’t no place for children. If I had forty 
little gals an’ boys — an’ I wish I had jess that 
many — I wouldn’t choose a minin’-camp in 
which to rare up any of ’em. If you get to be 
my little gal in dead earnest, Marshy, I sha’n’t 
keep you here at Cloud Haven either. I’ll be 
selfish enough to keep you here this winter, 
but another winter I’ll have to see about bein’ 
at some place where you can go to school. 
Mustn’t grow up ign’rant, you know. Ever 
been to school ? ” 

“Some,” said Marcia. 

“ Read an’ write, hey ? ” 

“ I can read pretty good, but I can’t write 
pretty good. I can write some , and I’ve been 
on through long division in arithmetic, and 
I know the capitals of the States in the 
geography, and which is the longest river and 
the highest mountain in the world.” 

“You don’t say! Some little gals of your 
age don’t know that much. You’re most ready 
for a diplomy. Still, your eddication ain’t quite 
complete. There’s several more things you 
ought to know. Can’t say the multiplication 
back’ards, can you ? ” 

Marcia shook her head. 

“ Marshy,” said the Major, “ when I went to 


THE LADY OF THE HOUSE. 


31 


school no young person was thought to be well 
educated until she could spell clear through 
McGuffy’s speller, an’ say the multiplication 
table back’ards, an’ now they make ’em know 
still more. Education is a good thing, an’ you 
must stop a-strollin’ and get some of it. Well, 
I got to go down to Silver Queen an’ mail a 
letter before the weekly stage goes out. I don’t 
suppose the weekly stage will make many more 
trips this fall, an’ I’ll have to trail ’way over to 
Pine Point to get mail. You can wash up the 
dishes while I’m gone, can’t you?” 

“ Oh, yes, Mr. Major, I can, jess ! ” 

“Well, so do. Little girls ought to learn 
being useful. Ain’t afraid to stay alone here 
couple o’ hours ? ” 

“ I was always a-staying alone,” said Marcia. 
“ When we lived over in Silver Creek before 
we came to Camp Gothic, father used to go out 
prospecting, and mother used to go down to the 
town to work by the day, and I would stay 
alone from morning until night up in our cabin ; 
and it was a quarter of a mile from any other 
cabin, and I never was afraid.” 

“ Then I reckon you can stay all right here 
while I am gone. I’ll leave you old Don for 
comp’ny. Come out here, Don ! ” 

Don was the Major’s big Saint Bernard dog. 
He was a huge fellow, although, not much be- 
yond his puppyhood. The Major had bought 
him of a dog fancier when on his last trip to 
Denver. Don came forward, and the Major 


82 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


made him lie down before the fire. Then he said 
slowly and forcibly, shaking his finger, “Now 
you jist stay right here an’ take care of the 
cabin an’ Marshy — speshly Marshy.” 

The Major nodded his head toward Marcia as 
he spoke, and Don looked at her some minutes 
with his big brown eyes. “You do anything 
Marshy says fer you to,” the Major went on. 
“ You got to obey her same as if she was me, 
jess the same. She’s the lady o’ the house, 
Don!” 

Don beat the cabin floor slowly with his big 
bushy tail. He had seen Marcia for four days ; 
but he had lain under the table mostly, and 
strange people had been coming and going. 
The little girl had taken no notice of him, and 
the Major hadn’t taken much either. Don had 
understood perfectly that it was no time for 
dogs. This was the first cheerful day. And 
at the earliest moment when he properly could, 
his master had introduced him. Don was satis- 
fied. He intended to take care of everything 
and everybody, of course, but “ speshly 
Marshy.” 


THE MAJOR'S “ PIECE OF POETRY 83 


VII. 

THE MAJOR’S “PIECE OF POETRY.” 

After the Major had disappeared down the 
trail, the “ lady of the house” tied one of her 
mother’s big blue-and-white gingham kitchen 
aprons around her neck and went to work on 
the breakfast dishes. She had resolved to “ do ” 
the dishes and to “ slick up ” the cabin in a way 
that should meet with the Major’s approval 
when he returned from Silver Queen. 

There was plenty of hot water on the little 
sheet-iron stove, and a bar of yellow soap in a 
dish in the little sink the Major had built in a 
corner of the cabin. Here Marcia washed and 
wiped the dishes, the frying-pan in which the 
bacon had been fried, the pan in which the bis- 
cuits had been baked, and the small tin coffee- 
pot. She felt almost cheerful once more, as she 
took the broom and swept the cabin floor until 
not the tiniest bit of litter or dirt could be 
found on it. Then she carried the pots of gera- 
nium to the sink, and gave them a bath that 
left their pretty leaves wet and shining. She 
brushed up the hearth, asking Don to move as 
politely as possible, which he did like a gentle- 


34 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR . 


man, and then found a clean white cloth, and 
wiped off the little dust on the windows. 

When the Major came home he found Marcia, 
fresh and tidy, sewing a button on one of his 
blue flannel shirts. 

“Well, well!” exclaimed he. “My! how 
slicked up ev’rything is ! You didn’t squash 
your bump of order while you was livin’ like a 
gypsy, anyhow ! Didn’t have any callers that 
Don disapproved, hey? ” 

“No, Mr. Major, Don has been asleep all the 
while you’ve been gone.” 

At this remark Don opened his big eyes full 
on the Major, and winked if ever a dog winked. 

“I didn’t reckon you would have. It’s 
doubtful if we have any such before next spring. 
This mountain ain’t no place for a tramp to be 
trampin’ round on in the winter time. Well, 
folks air still a-clearin’ out o’ Silver Queen. 
Looks now as if they’d all be gone by — say by 
November first. I reckon that — but here’s 
something I bought if you’d done your work 
well, a kind of a 4 fer-a-good-child reward o’ 
merit.’ ” 

The Major tossed Marcia a small white paper 
parcel which proved to contain a dozen sticks 
of bright- colored candy. 

“ The very last bit o’ candy they had in the 
only store down in Silver Queen ! ” said the 
Major. “ Hank Dobbs, the storekeeper, is 
packin’ up to clear out to-morrow. The town 
an’ the hull gulch will have to git along with- 


THE MAJOR'S “ PIECE OF POETRY .” 35 


out his grand dry-goods-and-gin’ral-merchandise 
emporium after now, for he’s packed most of it 
in a truuk an’ a carpet bag. To be shore 
they’ve got half a dozen cans o’ tomaters, five 
or six clay pipes, an’ a few packages o’ smokin’ 
terbacker left at the Grand Arcade store, where 
I got the last of their candy ; but Johnson an’ 
Hawkins, the firm that runs it, are going to pull 
out this week, so there won’t be no more chance 
a-tall to go shoppin’ down in Silver Queen. 
Little Marshy Ruth, what do you say to us 
takin’ a boarder ? ” 

Little Marcia Ruth looked up from her sew- 
ing with a smile, but she did not say anything. 

“ Of course.” continued the Major, “ we ain’t 
goin’ to open a hotel nor even any genteel 
boardin’-house, but we must be some accommo- 
datin’. The older I grow, Marshy, the clearer 
I see that it is good and wise to be obligin’ in 
this life, an’ that the more favors you do, 
speshly favors that makes other folkses happy, 
the more happiness an’ fun you’ll get yourself ! 
Don’t you ever lose the chance to do a favor, 
little Marshy, if you want to be happy. I’m 
an old man now ; an’ the thing that gives me 
the most satisfaction is thinkin’ o’ the good I’ve 
tried to do, an’ the favors that have cost me the 
most are the ones I like to think of best. Ain’t 
nothin’, nothin’, little Marshy Ruth, that pays 
so well as jess simple human kindness. I ain’t 
never run much to poetry in my readin’ ; but 
sometimes I come acrost something in rhyme 


36 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


that tells the truth in a purtier way than it 
could be told any other way, and when I come 
across anything o’ that kind I cut it out an’ 
keep it ’round with me to read now an’ then. 
Here’s the last little thing o’ that kind I cut 
out. I think that it’d be a good thing for you 
to learn it by heart, an’ speak it sometime when 
you git to speakin’ pieces at school. Spose you 
can read well enough to read that right along ? ” 

The Major handed Marcia a worn little news- 
paper clipping that he had taken from his 
pocketbook. He had had it ten years. Not 
oftener than once in ten years did he find any- 
thing that he “ jess really liked.” 

Marcia took it, and read aloud without having 
to pause at any of the words : 

* * If any little word of ours 
Can make one life the brighter, 

If any little song of ours 

Can make one heart the lighter, 

God help us speak that little word, 

And take our bit of singing 
And drop it in some lonely vale, 

To set the echoes ringing.” 

“ Good enough ! ” exclaimed the Major. 
“ Got more book l’arnin’ than I reckoned on I 
Go on an’ read the next verse. It’s even 
better than the first.” 

Marcia read it, “ right along.” 

“ If any little love of ours 
Can make one life the sweeter, 

If any little care of ours 

Can make one step the fleeter, 


THE MAJOR'S “ PIECE OF POETRY 37 

If any little help may ease 
The burden of another, 

God give us love and care and strength 
To help along each other . 11 

“ Fine ! ” almost shouted the Major. “ Mebbe 
I ain’t no jedge, but I call that good poetry, an’ 
the readin’ of that little screed over an’ over has 
often led me to look around an’ see if there was 
any one I could help along. When I got a 
chance to kind o’ ‘ help some one along ’ down 
in poor old dyin’ Silver Queen to-day, I jess 
thought o’ them two lines : 

4 God give us love an 1 care an 1 strength 
To help along each other . 1 

An’ when I was asked to help a poor chap out, 
1 said I’d do it. I thought afterward that 
mebbe I’d better have consulted the lady of the 
house — but I’m doin’ it now, little Marshy.” 


38 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


VIII. 

A BOARDER AT CLOUD HAVEN. 

“ Now it was jess this way,” said the Major 
when he had carefully restored the scrap of 
paper to his pocket. “ I’d mailed my letter an’ 
had wasted some little time a-talkin’ around at 
the stores, an’ I was about to come back home 
when who should I bump up against but big 
Jed Thorpe, a feller I used to know over in 
Stray Horse Gulch. Seems he’s been workin’ 
on a claim over on Windy Mountain, four miles 
from here, all summer. The claim hadn’t panned 
out anything, an’ life had gone wrong with 
Jed all around ; but the worst was that Jed’s 
wife had died, an’ left him with a little gal 
’bout your age, Marshy.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Marcia, in a voice full of sym- 
pathy. 

“Yes, Marshy; and the little gal’s some like 
you in not having any brothers or sisters. Then, 
again, she is not like you ; for I jedge from 
her looks, an’ a few of her actions in the little 
time I saw her, that she’s a kind of a harum- 
scarum with a tongue loose at both ends, where- 
as, the land knows, you are quiet enough to suit 


A BOARDER AT CLOUD RAVEN. 39 


even the folkses that say children should be seen 
and not heard, — a doctrine I never thought 
well of. Doris Thorpe don’t think much of it 
either, I’ll be bound ! I’ve an idee that she’ll 
make things kind o’ lively here at Cloud Haven 
— but mebbe we need jest what she’ll bring, 
little Marshy Ruth.” 

Little Marcia Ruth nodded her head obedi- 
ently. 

“ You see, her father wants to go away over 
to Eagle Cliff about a claim he has there, an’ 
he don’t want to trail Doris along. He s’posed 
he could leave her at the boardin’-house down 
in Silver Queen while he was gone ; but the 
boardin’-house has shut up, an’ there ain’t 
another single place where the child can stay 
while her pa’s gone. He lots on takin’ 
her out o’ the gulch an’ over to Crystal 
City for the winter when he gets back from 
Eagle Cliff; an’ when I told him about you 
bein’ up here he asked if I wouldn’t take his 
little Doris in too, as a kind of a boarder for 
the time being ; an’ I said I would, but when 
any one ketches me takin’ pay for a little gal’s 
board it’ll be when I’m a sight meaner than I 
am now ! Say, what do you think of havin’ a 
little gal about your size here awhile ? ” 

“ I’ll like it,” said Marcia. 

“ Better wait until you see her before you 
are so sure ! The chances are you won’t take 
to her at all. She isn’t a bit like you.” 

“ Perhaps I’ll like her all the better for that,” 
said Marcia sweetly. 


40 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


“ Quite possible,” said the Major. “ It would 
make it kind o’ dull if we had to ’sociate all 
the time with folkses jess like ourselves, now 
that’s a fact. It is a good deal more interestin’ 
to come into contact with folks that’s straight 
different. An’ you’ll find this Doris Thorpe 
to be considerable different. Anyhow, there 
ain’t so many little gals in this neighborhood 
that we kin afford to be fussy an’ pick an’ 
choose ! ” 

“ When is Doris coming ? ” asked Marcia. 

“ This very afternoon. Her pa’s goin’ to 
come with her, an’ you’d better fly around an’ 
git a sweet o’ rooms ready. Shell she have the 
pink sweet or the blue sweet, or the state sweet 
with its private bawth an’ dinin-Toom ? * 

The Major threw his head back and laughed 
loudly at his own fun. Marcia laughed with 
him — although she did not fully understand 
all that he was talking about. But it was good 
to hear the Major laugh ; for it was a hearty, 
ringing, merry laugh — one of the kind that 
brings smiles to the faces of all who hear it. 

“ An’ you must speak to the head cook, 
Marshy, an’ tell him that we are to have a lady 
guest for a few days, an’ then you’d better step 
to the telephone an’ order extrys up from the 
market. How would oysters on the half-shell 
do to begin with ? Then we might have some 
sweetbreads and truffles and sich ’to follow the 
oysters. You think that would be about right, 
my little lady of the house ? ” 


A BOARDER AT CLOUD HAVEN. 41 


“ You know I don’t know, Mr. Major,” said 
Marcia, a little soberly. “We never had com- 
pany in our lives.” 

“ Well, we’ll wait until she comes, an’ then 
we’ll sound her on what she wants to eat,” 
said the Major, dropping his fun. “ From what 
I have seen of her I don’t think she’ll be a mite 
back’ard about tellin’ what she wants. It 
wouldn’t s’prise me any if she looked the larder 
over within five minutes after she got here ! 
But we’ll turn in now and get our own dinner 
before she comes.” 


42 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


IX. 


DORIS. 

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon 
when the Major, who had stood looking down 
the trail leading to Silver Queen for some time, 
turned to Marcia. 

“ They’re cornin’. I kin see them jess 
roundin’ the curve down there by that big 
split bowlder. Where’s the porter? He wants 
to be ready to go out an’ meet them an’ bring 
in their baggage ! ” 

Marcia laughed a little, feeling a queer ex- 
citement, for she never had lived in a house 
with another little girl, and came and stood by 
the Major in the doorway. He lifted her up 
into his strong arms. 

“ See ern’ cornin’ just this side o’ that big 
rock down the trail ? ” 

“ Oh ! I see them now ! ” 

“ W ouldn’t it be a kind of a friendly an’ so- 
ciable thing for us to walk out an’ meet ’em ? ” 
asked the Major. “ You want to go? ” 

Marcia slipped down, and got her worn old hat 
from a peg on the cabin wall and her jacket too. 

They set forth hand in hand, after telling 


DORIS. 


43 


Don to stay at home. A walk of five minutes 
brought them face to face with big Jed Thorpe 
and Doris. 

“ Hello ! ” called out the Major cheerily, when 
they were yet some distance from their guests. 

“ Hello your own self ! ” came in shrill, ring- 
ing tones ; and then Marcia and the Major saw 
Jed give Doris a jerk of reproof. 

“ A polite little girl, eh ! ” said the Major in 
an undertone. 

“ You said ‘ Hello ! ’ to her, Mr. Major,” said 
little Marcia Ruth, also in undertones, but with 
a voice of justice. 

A moment or two later Marcia stood looking 
into the twinkling blue eyes of a little girl of 
about her own age. This little girl had hair 
of a decidedly reddish tinge, and the Major did 
not exceed the truth when he said that her nose 
was “as freckled as a turkey egg.” She had 
sharp front teeth and a sharp little chin. When 
she smiled a pair of dimples came to her cheeks, 
and her laugh was equal to the Major’s in its 
cheeriness and heartiness. She held herself 
very erect, and looked at Marcia and the Major 
with no trace of shyness. 

“ Hello, girl ! ” she said to Marcia. “ Where 
did you come from here ? ” 

“ From over in Camp Gothic.” 

“ Dead old place ! Dead as Silver Queen 
down there. Is it any livelier up where you 
and the Major live?” 

The Major laughed aloud at this. 


44 


MARCIA AND TEE MAJOR. 


“ Oh ! it’s so gay up at Cloud Haven, where 
we live, that Marshy and I are all wore out with 
the gayety of it.” 

“It looks lively up there, I must say,” said 
Doris, glancing up toward the cabin sitting on 
the rocky shelf of Old Baldy. 

“ Oh, it is. Don’t you hear the bands play- 
ing, an’ all the noise an’ racket of the people 
havin’ a good time ? An’ it will be a good deal 
livelier when you get there.” 

“I reckon it will,” said Jed Thorpe dryly. 

This prediction was verified ; for the nimble 
tongue of little Doris ran steadily, and her 
laugh rang out every few minutes. She walked 
a short distance back down the trail with her 
father on his return to Silver Queen. The 
Major said, w r hen the two were beyond hearing, 
“ Mighty lively youngster, an’ yet she’s real 
true likable, Marshy. She ain’t had the best 
o’ raisin’, but I’ll bet that she wouldn’t do a 
mean thing or tell a fib. I take to her if she 
is a mite sassy. A body oughtn’t to expect 
much manners from one raised as she’s been. 
She’s never been out o’ sight o’ these moun- 
tains. Bom right here an’ raised here. I told 
her pa to-day that it was his duty to get some 
place where she could go to school an’ have 
some raisin’. She’s a good-hearted child. I 
can tell that from her laugh. No mean kind 
of a person ever laughs as she laughs, nor they 
wouldn’t look you right in the eye either. I 
kind o’ take to her, yes I do ! ” 


DORIS. 


45 


But Marcia was silent. 

When Doris came back to the cabin, she at 
once entered and threw herself face downward 
on the bearskin rug before the hearth. With 
her chin in her hands, and partly supporting 
herself on her elbows, she gazed into the fire 
the Major had started in the fireplace. 

“You got things mighty nice and comforta- 
ble here, Mr. Major- What’ s-Your-Name,” she 
said at last, complacently. “You don’t often 
find such a comfortable cabin. Did you shoot 
the bear this hide come from ? ” 

“ I did, Doris.” 

“ Honest Injun ? ” 

“ Hope to die if I didn’t ! ” 

“Well, he must have been a whaling big 
fellow ! ” 

“ He was consid’rable hefty,” said the Major. 

“I should think so. Did he show much 
fight?” 

“ You’d thought so if you’d been there, 
Doris.” 

“ Wish I had ! ” 

“ You’d of been skeered out of a year’s 
growth,” said the Major. 

“ Oh, would I? You ask my father if I was 
scared out of even a week’s growth one day 
when he and I come across a fearfully big old 
grizzly over in Stray Horse Gulch. You ever 
see a real live bear, you Marcia girl?” 

“ Not running wild,” answered Marcia. 

« Well, it’s much more fun to see them that 


46 


MARCIA AND TEE MAJOR. 


way than all chained up with a muzzle on,” 
said Doris. “ Talking of bears, I’m as hungry 
as one just out of his winter den. Most supper- 
time?” 

“ Very nearly. What will your ladyship 
have for supper ? ” asked the Major, doing 
most of the talking to protect Marcia in her 
shyness. 

“ The best you have ! ” laughed Doris, as she 
rolled over on her side with one cheek resting 
in the hollow of her hand. “ You two get the 
supper and I’ll wash the dishes. That’s the 
way father and I fix it. That’s fair, isn’t 
it?” 

“ Yes, ’tis,” said Marcia suddenly, pleased 
for the first time with what Doris said. 

“ I always want to do the fair thing,” added 
Doris, as she took her thumb and finger and 
flipped back a live coal that had popped from 
the fireplace to the edge of the rug on which 
she was lying. 

“ I believe you do, sissy,” said the Major. 

“I just hate a sneak!” said Doris, “or a 
shirk! You see if I don’t wash the dishes up 
spick and span — and I hate to wash dishes.” 

“ S’posin’ you get the supper then, an’ we 
will do the dishes,” said he teasingly. 

“ Oh, but I hate cooking worse than I hate 
washing dishes ! ” laughed Doris. 

Then the blue eyes wandered around the 
room until they rested on the shining barrel 
of the Major’s rifle. 


BORIS. 


47 


“ You love your gun, don’t you, Mister 
Major?” she asked. 

“ What makes you think so ? ” 

“ Because you keep it so shiny. The very 
stock shines. Let’s shoot at a mark in the 
morning.” 

“ You shoot at a mark ? I’ll warrant you’d 
stick your fingers in your ears if you knew the 
gun was to go off.” 

“Would I? You hand me down that gun 
and see if I can’t stand in the cabin door and 
chip a bit of the bark off that tree out across 
the trail ! ” 

“ I’ll take your word for it, sissy,” said the 
Major. “ What else can you do that little gals 
ain’t any bizness to do ? ” 

“ I can climb a pine tree that ain’t a sign of a 
branch for twenty-five feet from the base up ! 
Yes, and I can tumble and tousle this noble 
old dog of yours around any way I want to, 
and he won’t bite me ! ” 

Don was lying quietly at the other end of 
the bearskin, once in a while looking up at 
“ the lady of the house ” as she passed. Doris 
rolled over toward him, clasped her thin arms 
around his neck, and buried her face in his 
shaggy hair. 

“ You beautiful old doggy !” she said. “Any- 
thing I love it’s a dog — a great big, lovely old 
doggy ! Now, you big rascal, you ! ” 

She rose to her knees and began to tumble 
and tousle the dog ; and he entered fully into 


48 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


the romp, barking loudly and playfully, and 
biting at her hands as she cuffed his ears and 
pommeled him with her small fists. Marcia 
looked on in wonder. The Major, frying batter- 
cakes, looked on too. “ Well,” said he to him- 
self, “ they make a real purty picture playing 
there in the firelight. Two little gals an’ a dog 
do brighten up an old feller’s cabin mightily. 
I don’t believe I shall care if Jed Thorpe ain’t 
in any hurry about cornin’ back to carry away 
that little tyke of his ! ” 


AN INTERESTING ADVERTISEMENT. 49 


X. 

AN INTERESTING ADVERTISEMENT. 

Doris, true to her promise, “ did up ” the 
supper dishes “ spick and span,” when the 
evening meal was over. Marcia offered to help, 
but Doris spoke up to her with decision : 

“ No, you sha’n’t. A bargain is a bargain. 
I said I was going to do these dishes myself if 
you got the supper, and I shall stick by my 
bargain.” 

“ Good for you! ” cried the Major approvingly. 
“ Always stick to your word, my girl, no matter 
how hard ’tis ! ” 

“ I can’t think of any harder way of doing it 
than by washing a pile of dirty dishes and a 
greasy old skillet,” said Doris, as she poured 
a stream of scalding water over the three plates 
she had just washed. 

Every night the Major piled pine-knots on the 
fire after darkness had settled around Cloud 
Haven. This evening the burning, crackling 
knots filled the room with a cheery light. 'The 
Major lay on the couch before the fire smoking 
his pipe, and listening to the chatter of Doris 
as she romped with the dog or made progress 


50 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


in her efforts to “ get acquainted ” with Marcia. 
After a while she overcame something of 
Marcia’s reserve. Then the two girls talked 
merrily ; and it pleased the Major to hear 
Marcia’s laugh ringing out almost as clearly as 
the laugh of Doris. 

It was not yet nine o’clock when Doris sud- 
denly began to yawn. 

“ I feel like turning in for the night,” she said. 
“ Where am I going to bunk, Mr. Major ? ” 

“ You and Marcia are going to bunk in 
there,” said the Major pointing, to the room in 
the rear of the cabin. “ Come, Marshy,” said 
he, “you are the lady of the house, the Mrs. 
Hostess ; you light a candle, an’ show your 
guest to her apartment. Tell her that if she 
wishes anything in the night to ring for it, and 
be sure an’ show her just where the fire-escape 
is. See to it that she puts out the gas, and 
ask her if she wishes to be called in the morn- 
ing for any pertickler train.” 

Doris stared at the Major for a moment, and 
then she rushed forward, threw her arms around 
his neck, and kissed him. 

“ What a funny old Mr. Major you are ! ” she 
said as she ran away. “But I like you just 
the same.” 

His other little girl had never kissed him. 
But now she came up, the candle in her hand, 
and spoke to him shyly. 

“ Good-night Mr. Major,” she said ; and 
then she, too, kissed him, and followed Doris 


AN INTERESTING ADVERTISEMENT. 51 


into the next room, the Major calling out after 
them, “ Good night, little tads ! an’ the Lord 
bless an’ keep you both ! ” 

Neither little girl noticed the sudden break 
in the Major’s voice, and Marcia supposed the 
sudden coughing spell that seized him was 
caused by a whiff of smoke from his pipe 
going down his throat. Of course they didn’t 
see the two big tear-drops that stole down his 
furrowed and bearded cheeks when they had 
gone into the next room, and had begun to 
whisper and giggle together as little girls will 
when they are getting ready for bed. 

A quarter of an hour after it had become 
perfectly silent in the little bedroom, the Major, 
who was sitting before the fire with his elbows 
on his knees and his chin in his hands, was 
startled by a loud “ boo ! ” Whirling around 
he saw a little figure draped in a sheet with 
outstretched arms behind him. The figure ran 
toward the door of the room, but the Major 
caught her up in his arms, and held her aloft 
while she struggled and shrieked with laughter. 

“ What you mean by skeering me like that ? ” 
he asked in pretended anger. “ I never was so 
skeered in all the born days of my life. If 
there’s anything I am afeerd of it’s spooks ! ” 
Then he carried Doris into the bedroom, and 
dropped her down into her bunk. 

When the Major returned to his place before 
the fire, he took up the paper that he had 
brought from Silver Queen that morning. It 


52 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


was a Denver paper ; and as the Major ran his 
eye up and down the columns he chanced to 
come across this advertisement in the “ Per- 
sonal” column: 

“ If Myron Norton Field, who went from Leesville, 
Ohio, to Colorado, five or six years ago, will call on 
or communicate with the undersigned at 352 Larimer 
Street within the next ten days, he will hear of some- 
thing very much to his advantage. J. B. Upton.” 

After the Major had read this notice through 
three times, he let the paper slip from his hand 
to the floor. He began to “ mull ” over what 
he had read. 

“ Myron — Norton — Field,” said the Major 
to himself. “ That was his name. That was 
the name written on a little note-book in his 
pocket, an’ Marcia said that it was her pa’s 
own name. Yes, an’ she certain said that the 
name of the place they lived in, in Ohio, 
before they came here, was Leesville. I’d like 
to know what this Upton feller knows that 
would of been to the advantage of Myron 
Norton Field. It can’t advantage him any 
now, not if he has fallen heir to the United 
States Mint, pore feller ! But, then, I trust 
he has fallen heir to something wuth a sight 
more than the United States Mint or anything 
else in the United States ! ” 

The Major took up the paper, and read the 
notice for the fourth time. He looked at the 
date of the paper, and saw it was already five 
days old. 


AN INTERESTING ADVERTISEMENT. 53 


“ There ain’t but five more days in which to 
see or git word to this Upton man,” he mused. 
“ An’ there ain’t another mail out o’ here for 
a week. Mails are mighty oncertain in the 
mountains at this time o’ the year anyhow. It 
won’t do to trust anything urgent or important 
to the mails. An’ yit if this matter is some- 
thing that would of been important to Myron 
Norton Field, mebbe it is of equal importance 
to his little gal. An’ as I seem to be the 
only friend Marshy’s got, it rests on me to 
look up anything that might be to her ad- 
vantage ! ” 

It was about midnight before the Major 
made up his mind what he would do in regard 
to the advertisement he had read. 

“ Well,” he said to himself, as he roused up, 
“ I’ll quiz Marshy all I can to-morrow about 
her pa without saying a word about this notice, 
an’ then I’ll jess go down to Denver an’ see 
this Mr. Upton man. I can walk over Paradise 
Pass an’ get the tri-weekly stage at Gothic City, 
an’ go on it down into the South Park an’ git 
the train for Denver there. Marsh}' and I was 
going to Denver soon to lay in provisions any- 
how, but I can’t wait for that. I’ll see to the 
provisions when there. If there’s anything in 
Denver to the advantage of this little orphan 
gal she’s going to know about it. But what 
about these two youngsters while I’m gone ? ” 
he went on. “ They couldn’t walk way over 
to Gothic City to git the stage, even if I wanted 


54 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


to take ’em with me, leastwise Marshy couldn’t. 
I reckon Doris could hoof it clean to Denver 
if she tuk a notion. She’s that chock full o’ 
grit. But they can’t go. That’s out o’ the 
question. Jed Thorpe is six or eight miles on 
the way to his claim, for he was goin’ that far 
this afternoon an’ stay all night with some old 
chum on the road. An’ if I want to git the 
next stage from Gothic City I must get out o’ 
here by eight o’clock. Well, I can’t figger it 
out any way but that the two little gals stay 
here alone while I’m gone. I’ll leave ’em Don, 
of course. There’s plenty o’ grub to last three 
times as long as I’ll be away, an’ Marshy 
knows more about cookin’ than some grown-up 
wimmen do.” 

The Major pondered the matter a little 
longer. Then he said to himself, “I really 
needn’t worry none about leavin’ them for live 
or six days. ’Tisn’t likely a single person will 
come nigh the cabin in that time. They are 
both as well as a couple o’ little pigs, an’ I’ll 
warrant you that neither of ’em will be a bit 
afraid.” 

The Major was right in this conjecture. 
Doris hooted at the idea of being afraid to stay 
in the nice cabin at Cloud Haven with Marcia 
for company. 

“ Why,” she said, “ once I was left alone in 
our cabin over in Stray Horse Gulch for a week, 
and I wasn’t scared a little bit. Afraid to stay 
here ? I wouldn’t be afraid to stay all by my 


AN INTERESTING ADVERTISEMENT. 55 


lone self ! It will just be a picnic for us, now 
won’t it, Marcia ? ” 

Marcia said she was not afraid to stay with 
Doris for company. So the Major said, “ All 
right then. I’ll be off in less than an hour.” 


56 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


XI. 


A CALLER AT CLOUD HAVEN. 

The Major did not tell either of the little 
girls the real object of his visit to Denver. 
Marcia knew the need of his going there before 
winter set in to secure more provisions. He 
spoke of this to her, and said he thought he’d 
better go now, though it was earlier than he 
intended, because he had other “ important 
business ” there. 

Before the Major went, he sat down before 
Don, took the dog’s head between his knees 
and talked to him. 

“ Now see here, Don ; I want you to look on 
yourself as master of the house while I am 
gone. I want you to see to it that no harm 
comes to the ladies of the house. You keep 
your eye on ’em, an’ you defend ’em with your 
life. You stay around the cabin. Don’t you 
go off once ! When I come back I want to 
find you right here with my little Marshy and 
Doris ! ” 

Don wagged his tail, and acted quite as if he 
understood. But he certainly did not accept 
the trust cheerfully. When the Major was 


A CALLER AT CLOUD HAVEN. 


57 


leaving the cabin the dog whined to go with 
him. After he was gone he stood before the 
door a long time, scratching it, and begging to 
be allowed to go out. 

“ But you are not going,” said Doris, as she 
gave him a cuff on one of his big ears. “ Y ou 
just go and lie down and behave yourself. A 
nice master of the house you are, whining and 
fussing, and willing to leave the ladies alone ! 
You ought to be ashamed of yourself! ” 

Whether this rebuke made an impression on 
Don is not known. But he finally gave up 
trying to get out, and lay down before the fire 
and went to sleep, with his head between his 
forelegs. Doris said scornfully, “ He’s nothing 
but a half-trained puppy ! ” 

Marcia washed the breakfast dishes, and 
Doris wiped them. Now that they had “ got 
acquainted,” as Doris said, they talked and 
laughed together incessantly, Marcia chattering 
almost as fast as the nimble-tongued Doris. 
It was a great excitement to her to be with 
another little girl ! 

They compared notes in regard to living in the 
mining gulches, and Doris was eager to know 
what the world was like beyond the mountain 
walls behind which she had always lived. She 
listened eagerly when Marcia told her of Ohio 
and about the great plains and broad rivers, and 
announced her intention of traveling all over 
the world if her father ever “ struck it rich.” 

“But I guess I’ll never go if I have to wait 


58 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


for that,” she added. “ My daddy isn't one of 
the lucky kind.” 

When the dishes were washed and put away, 
and the cabin made tidy, Doris said, “ I saw a 
checkerboard there on the shelf above the 
mantel last night. Do you know how to play 
checkers, Marcia?” 

“ Oh, yes ; and I know how to play fox-and- 
geese too.” 

“ So do I. Supposing we have a game or 
two.” 

Marcia agreed to this; and they put the 
checkerboard on the table in front of the win- 
dow, and were soon intent on a game. They 
had won one each, and were putting their mer 
in position for the third, when there came 
a sudden knock at the door. Marcia was so 
startled that she tipped all of her men out of 
the “ king row.” Doris went to the door, but 
instead of opening it she slipped the strong bolt 
that fastened it. Then she called out, “ Who 
is it ? ” 

Don roused up, and began barking furiously. 
Doris stamped her foot and said, “ Silence, 
Don ! ” 

Then she called out again, “ Who are you ? ” 

“ Can I sell you some dings to-day ? ” was the 
reply. 

“ Oh, it’s a pedler,” said Doris in an under- 
tone to Marcia. “ He was down in Silver Queen 
yesterday. I suppose he is going over to Crys- 
tal City.” 


A CALLER AT CLOUD HAVEN. 


59 


“ You yant to buy someding to-day? ” 

“No, we do not.” 

“ I sells all my dings very sheep.” 

“We don’t want to buy.” 

“ You vill not get a shanse no more dis vin- 
ter dings to buy. I have lofly reebon und 
peautiful lace.” 

“We can get through the winter with what 
we have on hand,” said Doris, looking at Marcia 
and laughing. 

The man rapped boldly on the door. “ Come I 
Open de door ! I know tere is no man inside.” 

“That makes no difference,” replied Doris. 
“ There is a big dog in here and a rifle, and I 
know to shoot, and the dog will bite.” 

“ Pooh ! You dink I am afraid ? ” 

“ Do you think that I am afraid ? ” questioned 
Doris. 

“ I yoost vant to show you vot I haf to sell, 
lady ! ” 

“ We don’t want to see what you have to sell. 
Come here, Don ! guard this door while I get 
the gun.” .. 

Don flew at the door, barking loudly. He 
clawed and scratched in his efforts to get out, 
when all at once Marcia, glancing out of the 
window, said in a tone of great relief, “ The 
man has gone ! There he goes up the trail ! ” 

Both girls looked out of the window, and saw 
the pedler hurrying up the trail with his pack 
on his back. 

“ I guess that’s the last we’ll see of him,” said 


60 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


Doris. “ Yon were scared, now weren’t you, 
Marcia ? ” 

“Yes, I was,” said Marcia, confessing it; 
“just as scared as I could be.” 

“Well, I wasn’t born in the woods to be 
scared of a screech-owl ! Now let’s finish our 
game of checkers.” 

They sat down at the table ; but Marcia was 
still nervous, and she played so badly that Doris 
had an easy victory in winning the “rubber.” 
Then the two girls looked over a little box of 
bright-colored scraps of dress goods that were 
among Marcia’s few possessions, and got needles 
and some* thread and began a penwiper for the 
Major. 

“ He has about as much need of a penwiper 
as he has for a package of hairpins,” said Doris. 
“ But then it might please him if we made him 
one, you know. Daddy says the Major is one 
of the best men in the world.” 

“ He is awful good,” said Marcia simply. 

“ He is white,” replied Doris, which was the 
strongest testimony she knew how to bear to 
the Major’s virtues. 

The girls had a merry time cooking and eat- 
ing their dinner. Still the day seemed very 
long ; and when they had washed the dishes, 
and Doris went to the door to throw out the 
dishwater, she found that she had thrown out 
a spoon with it, and she stepped out for it, leav- 
ing the door open behind her; and Don, who 
had been lying before the fire half asleep, saw 


A CALLER AT CLOUD HA YEN. 


61 


the open door and suddenly became wide awake 
and shot out and flew down the trail as fast as 
his legs could carry him, heedless of the loud 
and imperative commands of Doris to return ! 

“ He is off on the trail of the Major,” said 
Doris, when she returned to the cabin, greatly 
vexed over Don’s ungallant conduct. 

“ He can’t overtake the Major now,” said 
Marcia, much worried. 

“ He’ll overtake him mighty soon if he keeps 
going as he was going when he went around 
that curve in the trail,” said Doris. 

Both girls secretly felt troubled over the escape 
of their best protector ; even Doris thought noth- 
ing worse could have happened. They hoped 
that he would weary of his pursuit of his master 
and return to the cabin at nightfall. But he 
did not. 


62 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


XII. 

HOW DON RETURNED. 

The days wore on very slowly for the little 
girls at Cloud Haven. The weather was un- 
usually sunny and warm for that time of the 
year, and they took several walks up the moun- 
tain slopes. One day they went down to the 
now entirely deserted Silver Queen. They 
found the doors of the cabins open and their 
former occupants gone. 

“And I guess none of them went away as 
well off nor as light-hearted as when they came 
here,” said Doris. “And none of them will 
ever come back ! And here their homes will 
stand and stand, their doors blowing back and 
forth, until they rot down ! ” 

“ Poor men ! ” said Marcia. “ I am sorry for 
them.” 

The little girls wandered up and down the 
one rocky, crooked street of the camp, peering 
into the empty cabins for some time, comment- 
ing on the loneliness of the place. Then they 
started to climb the trail leading to Cloud 
Haven. Marcia thought how cosey the home 
would seem with its furs and flowers and open 
fire, if only the good Major were back. 


HOW DON RETURNED. 


63 


“ It’s almost as warm as June,” said she. “ I 
don’t believe winter is coming very early this 
year, if the Major did think it was.” 

“ Don’t you be too sure,” said Doris. “ Just 
like as not there’ll be a reg’lar blizzard raging 
and ranting around here before morning. Some- 
times it doesn’t take more than half a minute, 
you know, for the weather to change. I love a 
blizzard, don’t you ? ” 

Marcia gave a little shiver. “No, I do not. 
I feel dreadful when the wind roars so in the 
canons, and the snow drives, and it gets so 
dark ! I would be sick if a blizzard came while 
dear Mr. Major is gone ! ” 

The dazzling sun disappeared behind a cloud 
at that moment, and the air seemed to freeze 
up instantly. They stood still, looking at the 
mighty clouds that rose fast, like strange 
towers, up from behind Baldy Mountain. 

“ I’ve seen them come up that way before, 
all of a sudden, when the sun had been shin- 
ing as bright, ” said Doris. “ Marcia Field, 
there’s going to be a big one before morning.” 

The “ big one ” came long before morning. 
The entire sky had become overcast, and the 
wind was beginning to rise, by the time the 
little girls entered Cloud Haven. All the after- 
noon the mountain peaks grew grimmer and 
colder. Night shut down suddenly. Marcia 
and Doris worked hard for an hour, bringing in 
a great quantity of firewood from the winter 
supply the Major had piled up in long rows 


64 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


behind the cabin. Then they built up a roar- 
ing fire, and shut the door and bolted it, and 
drew the white curtains close behind the gera- 
niums. 

“ I like a great, big, snapping fire on such 
a night,” said Doris cheerily. “I shouldn’t 
wonder if we sat up all night. Now, we want 
something nice and hot for supper. Let’s open 
a can of the Major’s tomatoes, and stew them up 
with lots of seasoning in them.” 

“ And I will make some biscuits, and we will 
have them hot with ham gravy,” said Marcia, 
always cheerful when she was cooking. “ And 
let’s set the table right up before the fire- 
place.” 

The agreeable odor of frying ham soon filled 
the little cabin, and the light from the burning 
logs shed a rosy glow all about, sending it even 
into the bedroom. Once Doris unbolted the 
door and looked out ; but the wind swept in so 
fiercely that it blew ashes from the fireplace 
over the room, and she closed it quickly. 

“ It’s as dark as a stack of black cats,” she 
said. “ And how the wind is roaring up and 
down the canon ! It’s beginning to snow too.” 

“ And how cold it has grown ! ” said Marcia, 
as she laid another log on the fire. “ I guess 
we needn’t be afraid of pedlers nor of any one 
else coming snooping around such a night as 
this ! ” 

When their supper was ready, the little girls 
sat close to the fire and ate. The darkness and 


HOW DON RETURNED. 


65 


storm did not depress Doris in the least. She 
chattered away, and her merry laugh rang out 
again and again. She had a great sense of 
snugness and comfort, sitting there in the warm 
soft glow of the firelight while the wind roared 
and the snow flew outside. “ Isn’t this just 
cosey ? ” she said to Marcia, as they sat at the 
little table with its coarse but clean white 
cloth. “ Let’s eat real slow and enjoy itl 
Your biscuits are as light as a feather, Marcia. 
I never can get biscuits to be light and flaky.” 

“ Well, you fried the ham just right,” said 
Marcia, by way of returning Doris’s compliment. 
“And I didn’t suppose that any one could 
make such good cocoa with just condensed 
milk! I think — what’s that?” 

“ I don’t hear anything,” said Doris. 

“ It sounded like something right on the 
door. Hark! Was that a whine, or was it the 
wind blowing?” Little Marcia thought of 
“ cattymounts.” 

Both stopped eating, and listened. 

“ There it is again ! ” said Marcia. 

“ We’ll see what it is,” said Doris, jumping 
up from the table and starting to go to the 
door. 

“ O mercy ! don’t open the door ! ” exclaimed 
Marcia. “ It may be a bear ! ” 

Doris put her ear to the keyhole for a mo- 
ment. Then she rapped on the door with her 
knuckles, whereupon the scratching was re- 
peated, and it was followed by a low whine. 


66 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


“ That isn’t any bear,” said Doris as she 
threw back the bolt. “ It is a dog.” 

Doris opened the door, and Don came bound- 
ing into the room bearing evidence of having 
traveled far. His shaggy coat had snowflakes 
frozen thick upon it, and his red tongue was 
lolling out of his mouth. 

“ Oh, the Major must be coming ! ” ex- 
claimed Marcia. “ He must be near. He did 
not think be would get back until to-morrow, 
but he must have started a day sooner than he 
thought he would. Where’s the Major, Don ? ” 

The dog walked around and around the room, 
panting and whining. Then he ran to the 
door, and began scratching on it as if imploring 
to be let out again. 

“ I think he wants to run back to meet 
the Major,” said Doris ; and she opened the door 
and Don ran out. 

The two little girls stood in the doorway, 
in the heavy wind and darkness and beating 
snow, expecting each moment to see the Major 
emerge into the expanse of light that spread a 
little way out. But he did not appear. 

Suddenly Don came running back to them in 
the gloom and storm, and caught Marcia’s skirt 
between his teeth, and pulled her down from 
the doorstep. She got away from him, and 
he ran off into the darkness again, then came 
back whining and this time caught at the skirt 
of Doris’s dress, trying to pull her along after 
him. 


HOW DON RETURNED. 


67 


Doris laid hold of his collar the best she 
could. “ Marcia,” she said, “ Don wants us to 
go with him to meet the Major ! That is just 
what he means by these actions ! ” 

She bent over and patted the great puppy 
on the head. “ Do you want us to go with 
you and meet the Major, Don?” 

The dog barked frantically. 

“ That is just what he wants. Let’s go, 
Marcia.” 

“ It’s awfully dark, Doris. We shall get 
lost, and fall down, and everything.” 

“We can take the Major’s lantern. You 
know he got it all ready for use before he went 
away so that we could have it if we needed it. 
And we sha’n’t get lost — Don will keep coming 
back to us if we don’t keep up with him.” 

Don made a great noise in his impatience and 
his gladness all the while the little girls were 
lighting the lantern and bundling themselves up. 

All at once, Doris stopped and screamed. 

“ Marcia Field ! I just believe the dear, dear, 
Major is in trouble of sotne sort! He would 
have been here with Don by this time if every- 
thing was right! I think Don is so wild to 
have us go with him because the Major has sent 
him for us ! I do ! There’s something wrong ! 
I know there is ! Bundle up good. There’s 
no telling how far we will have to go ! Isn’t 
there a bottle of brandy up there on the top 
shelf of the cupboard ? ” 

“ I guess so.” 


68 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR . 


“ I thought I saw it one day when I was 
mousing around in the cupboard. We’d better 
take it with us.” 

Doris went into the bedroom just before they 
started, and came out with a pair of heavy gray 
blankets. She handed one of them to Marcia. 

“ Here, we’d better each of us wrap a blanket 
around us over our other things — it’s deadly 
cold.” Little Doris didn’t say the Major might 
need the warmth of the blankets when they 
found him. 

The little girls partly deadened the fire by 
throwing ashes over it, and then started out 
with Don, who now ran on ahead barking, and 
then would return and rub up against them as 
if to thank them for coming with him. 


FOR THE MAJOR. 


69 


XIII. 

FOR THE MAJOR. 

Down the trail, and down the trail, went 
Marcia and Doris in the storm, following the 
frozen-coated dog. It was so intensely dark 
they could not see a foot beyond the light cast 
by the old tin lantern which Doris carried. 

The wind went roaring and wailing up and 
down the black canon below. It almost swept 
the two little girls from the trail on some of the 
curves, and the snow dashing in their faces was 
hard and fine and sharp like meal. Their 
blankets flapped round them ; and one blast of 
icy wind, fiercer and suddener than the others, 
blew Marcia’s up over her head so that she 
stumbled and fell, bruising herself. Doris 
helped her up. 

“ Have you hurt you, Marcia ? ” 

“ I guess not,” said Marcia, steadying her- 
self, and getting her blanket down around her 
again. 

“ This isn’t as much fun as sitting by the 
fire in the cabin toasting our toes, is it, 
Marcia ? ” said Doris. 

“ No, it isn’t — where’s Don ?” 


70 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


“ He’s just ahead ; you scared ? ” 

“No — not so very much — are you ? ” 

“Not a bit! I never was afraid of the dark 
yet, or a storm, but I wouldn’t choose this kind 
of a night to go walking, though. We must 
both be careful not to smash the lantern or we’ll 
be in a nice fix. I hope Don isn’t leading us 
off on a wild-goose chase ! ” 

Down and down they went, until at last 
they stopped still, to take counsel together. 
They concluded they better go back to the 
cabin, and turned. Don, out of sight in the 
darkness, seemed to discover it instantly. He 
set up such a barking, and came back and 
tugged so hard at their clothes, that they fol- 
lowed after him again. 

The Major must be on ahead somewhere,” 
Doris said. “ We’ll go a little farther, anyway.” 

The two little girls were down the trail now 
a distance of fully two miles from Cloud 
Haven. 

Don plunged on ahead, a long time silent; 
then suddenly they heard him barking furiously 
in the darkness. Five minutes later they both 
almost fell over a man, lying straight across the 
trail. Doris righted herself, and held the 
lantern aloft. There was Don, his front paws 
on the prostrate form, and looking up at her. 
The man was certainly the Major ; and a great 
rock, that must have come rolling down the 
mountain was holding him fast by one leg. 

“ It’s the Major sure enough ! ” gasped Doris. 


FOR THE MAJOR. 


71 


“ Major ! Major ! here we be, Doris and Marcia, 
come to help you ! Can’t you speak to us ? ” 

But the Major had fainted. 

“ Put the brandy to his lips,” whispered 
Marcia, trembling, and getting the flask from 
her pocket. 

In a moment or so the Major opened his 
eyes full upon them. 

“ Children, how did you get here ? ” 

“ On shank’s horses,” replied Doris merrily, 
though she was trembling, too, as bad as Marcia. 
“ Don came and told us, and here we are.” 

The Major drew a long, hard breath. “ You 
can’t get this rock off my leg, can you ? ” 

“ We’ll try.” 

And try his little girls did, but in vain. 
The rock was too heavy for them to move, yet 
they tried again and again. 

They were within half a mile of deserted 
Silver Queen now. As they stood erect, getting 
their breath for another effort, suddenly Doris 
cried out: 

“ See, Marcia ! There’s a light in one of the 
cabins down in Silver Queen ! I can see it 
every now and then in the storm ! Look ! ” 

“ So there is,” said Marcia. “ I mean, I think 
I can see one.” 

“ It’s there, sure ! ” said Doris, tying her hood 
tighter, and taking up the lantern. “You 
stay here with the Major, and I’ll get on down 
to that cabin, and make whoever is there come 
up here.” 


72 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


“ O Doris ! Are you going away off down 
there alone ? ” 

“ Why not ? I’m not afraid. I’ve lived in 
these mountains too long to be afraid ! I know 
what the light is — some prospectors on their 
way over the range have camped for the night 
in one of the cabins, and they’ll be different 
from any prospectors I ever saw if they won’t 
come and help us ! ” 

The Major lay still. “ Take Don ! ” was all 
he said. 

Doris was off the next minute in the stormy 
darkness, followed by Don. Marcia sat down 
on the ground beside the Major. 

“Plucky girl is she ! You’re cold, Marshy? ” 

“ I’m afraid you must be ! ” She unpinned 
her big bed-blanket, and cuddling down beside 
him, got it over them both. 

“ Sho ! ” said he. “ I’m all right. Got on 
my big fur coat, and clothes enough for an 
Eskeemoo. But it’s the best way for you ! ” 

Little Marcia Ruth noticed that he spoke 
with chattering teeth, and she was glad she had 
the blanket, and she tucked it well around his 
face and neck. Then she waited. 

It seemed a long time before she saw the 
light of the lantern. When she caught the first 
glimpse of it coming on a curve in the trail, she 
spoke to the Major. 

“ Doris is coming — and there’s two lan- 
terns ! ” she added, like a sudden hurrah. 

“I hope she’s got help,” he said, with a 


FOR THE MAJOR. 


73 


smothered groan, the first sound Marcia had 
heard him make. “ I’ll not need it if it don’t 
come before very long.” 

A minute later they heard Don bark. 

A few minutes later yet the shrill voice of 
Doris sounded out. “ Here we come ! Two 
big men and myself ! You are all right, Mr. 
Major!” 

Marcia saw two stalwart men coming up, re- 
vealed by the lanterns. 

“ I found them. They were down in the old 
hotel cabin,” said Doris ; “and they were on their 
way over to Stray Horse, and camped for the 
night, just as I reckoned. And they came right 
straight along with me, just as I banked on 
them doing ! ” 

“ Hello, Cap ! ” said one of the men, stoop- 
ing over the Major. “In a kind of a bad 
box, eh ? ” 

“ Bad enough.” 

“ I reckon so. We’ll see if we can’t get you 
out of it.” 

“ Can’t do it any too soon to suit me.” 

It was easy for the two prospectors to roll 
the stone off. They found the Major’s leg 
broken, below the knee. 

“ Well, we’ll have to go slow with you, and 
careful as we can,” said one of the men. “But 
Jim an’ me are ’bout as strong as oxes ; an’ we 
can get you up to your shanty some way, even 
if we have to make a saddle of our hands and 
carry you so — eh, Jim?” 


74 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


“ That’s right, Hank. Sooner we start the 
better. Let that little bundle ’o pluck with 
her own lantern go on ahead. T’other little gal 
with t’other lantern can come on behind. Pair 
of gritty youngsters you got, my friend ! If it 
hadn’t been for them an’ the dorg, I reckon 
you’d gone over the range for good an’ all ’fore 
morning ! ” 

“You’re right enough about that,” said the 
Major, fainting dead away as he was suddenly 
lifted. 


IN CLOUD HAVEN SHELTER. 


75 


XIV. 

IN CLOUD HAVEN SHELTER. 

It was long past midnight when Cloud Haven 
was reached. Strong as the two men were, they 
were near to being exhausted by the time they 
laid the Major on the couch before the fire in 
his cabin. 

“ But we’ve got to fix up that leg right away,” 
said the man called Jim. “ I worked in a hos- 
pital a couple o’ years back east, and I know 
how to handle a broken leg easy. Hank, you 
jess knock that flour barrel over there to pieces. 
I want some of the staves. Then, if these 
young ladies don’t know how, you’d better 
make us some nice hot coffee. Now, Missy, 
got an old sheet you can strip up jess as I 
tell you ? ” 

“ Marcia can make coffee, and good too,” 
said Doris. “ And I’ll get you a sheet.” And 
while Marcia put on the tea-kettle she ran in to 
the big dry-goods box that served as a bureau. 

At the end of an hour the Major declared 
himself to be “ as comfortable as though he 
were in a hospital,” and insisted on Marcia and 
Doris “ goin’ to bed, regular,” and his trained 


76 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


nurses making themselves at home on the thick 
rug before the fire. The wind still blew a gale, 
and the snow was dashing against the glass in 
the little windows of the cabin. But he found 
the two girls could not be got away until they 
had his story. And they wanted him to begin 
back, too, at the point where Don had over- 
taken him. 

“Well, that was at Gothic City,” he said. 
“ It’s an all-day tramp from here over to Gothic 
City. I expected it would be about dark 
before I got there. I was most in sight though, 
when I stopped cause I heard a kind of a pant, 
pant, coming up behind. And if there wasn’t 
that Don pup cornin’ on the lope, an’ tickled 
most to death because he had trailed me ! He’s 
been to Gothic with me a couple o’ times, so 
that once he got on my scent I guess he knowed 
where I was bound for. Anyhow, there he 
was, actin’ as if he felt mighty smart because 
he had outwitted me and the little gals. Course 
he got a good talkin’ to — which he didn’t give 
a rap for, the rascal ! 

“ Well, I couldn’t take him away off down to 
Denver with me, an’ I couldn’t make him come 
back here alone. So I took him to the cabin 
of a feller that I knew, an’ asked him to keep 
him for me until I came along back from 
Denver. Hi Ripley is one o’ these good-hearted, 
obligin’ fellers who are so white an’ so full o’ 
the grace o’ God that they ain’t never so happy 
as when they are doin’ some one a good turn ; 


IN CLOUD II A YEN SHELTER. 


77 


an Hi’ said I could leave the puppy with him 
an’ welcome. So when I went to Denver next 
day, Don stayed behind at Hi’s cabin at the end 
of a good stout chain — an’ there he stayed 
until I got back this morning, an’ we set out 
for Cloud Haven a-foot. I was late gettin’ off, 
though I spected a blizzard was due before 
sundown. It was jess along dark when that 
onmannerly rock broke loose an’ come wabbling 
down to keel me over an’ pin me fast, where I 
reckon I’d been yit if it hadn’t been for Don, 
to begin with. So you see his runnin’ away 
wasn’t so bad ! And you two little gals was 
clear grit too ! That’s all I’m going to tell 
to-night ! But I’ll have more to say to-morrow ! 
I haven’t told my real story, and I’m not a goin’ 
to at nigh three o’clock in the night ! ” 

Right there the Major stopped and laughed, 
— a queer chuckle of laughter it was. “ Yes,” 
he said, “ I rather think I shall tell you a rousin’ 
story to-morrow, and don’t you forget it, you 
little Marshy Ruthie Field ! ” 

“Marcia,” said Doris, as they undressed in 
their own little room, “ I guess the Major is a 
little out of his head to-night. But we won’t 
worry, for the men are here, and he’ll prob’bly 
wake up all right, — sick folks do wake up 
all right after they’ve been wanderin’ in their 
head ! ” 

L.ofC. 


78 


MARGTA AND THE MAJOR. 


XV. 

marcia’s great-uncle. 

Jed Thorpe arrived at Cloud Haven the 
next morning; and Joe and Hank went on their 
way, promising to send “ a reg’lar doctor ” over 
from Stray Horse Gulch. 

After breakfast the Major called Marcia to 
sit down on the couch. “ You come along too,” 
he called to Doris. “ All little gals enjoys a 
pretty story. This is speshly Marshy’s, but 
you’ll enjoy it.” 

“ So you ain’t no kin folks in the world that 
you know of, Marshy?” he began. 

“No, you know I told you I did not know of 
any,” said Marshy, thinking that perhaps the 
Major was “ a little out of his head.” 

“ Don’t remember of hearin’ your pa talk 
any about an uncle of his named Myron 
Field?” 

Marcia thought a moment. 

“ Yes, I remember pa sometimes spoke of an 
Uncle Myron, but I don’t know as he’d ever 
seen him. I remember ma said pa was named 
for his Uncle Myron.” 

“Well, his Uncle Myron remembered it too. 


MARCIA'S GREAT-UNCLE. 


79 


Kind of an odd stick this Uncle Myron was, 
wasn’t he ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said Marcia. 

“ I reckon he was. An’ one of his freaks was 
to go an’ make a will leavin’ his namesake, your 
pa, all of his propitty, exceptin’ a few hundred 
dollars to some kin not in any way closely re- 
lated to him like your pa was. It appears as 
if your pa was his only nevvy. This Uncle 
Myron of your pa’s died two years ago, an’ the 
lawyer has been all this time tryin’ to git on 
the track o’ your pa. He tracked him to Colo- 
rado, an’ there he lost sight o’ him ; an’ no won- 
der, trailin’ round the way your pa was. He 
was a mighty hard nevvy to keep track of. 
Never stayed more than a couple o’ moons in 
one place, now did he ? ” 

“ I told you, Mr. Major, that we moved lots,” 
replied Marcia, feeling strange over the way 
Mr. Major was talking about her pa, with Doris 
hearing it all. 

“ Well, it won’t be long until your pa’s heir 
makes another move, sorry as I’ll be to have her 
do it. The fact is, Marshy, this Uncle Myron 
of your pa’s was mighty lucky in his later years, 
an’ the propitty he left for your pa figgers 
up something more than fifty thousand dollars 
in what they call gilt-aidged securities — that 
means it’s as good as so much cash-money in 
the bank. An’ your parents all bein’ gone, this 
propitty jess natchrelly comes to you ; an’ a little 
girl with that much of a bank account hasn’t no 


80 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


bizness foolin’ away her time at Cloud Haven 
when she ought to be in a good school. I’ve 
seen an’ talked with Mr. Jared B. Upton, the 
lawyer from the east who has charge of the biz- 
ness of this late Mr. Myron Field, your great- 
uncle — an’ a mighty nice man he is. Fact is, 
if I ever bumped up agin a Christian gentleman 
I bumped up against one in your pa’s uncle’s 
lawyer. We talked matters over, an’ he went 
an’ got me app’nted your gardeen ; so you air 
a good deal more my little gal than you was 
when I went away t’other day. Well, you know 
little gals has to mind their gardeens, an’ so you 
have to do as I say, an’ go down to Denver next 
week an’ start in at a real nice school fer gals of 
about your age, kep’ by one o’ the finest wim- 
men I ever met. I know from her talk that 
she will be as good as a second gardeen. They 
tell me that she’s a real mother to her scholars.” 

Doris had not spoken at all. And now Mar- 
cia was silent. The Major said no more. He 
looked happy, and still he didn’t look happy. 
Pretty soon he happened to see Doris’s little 
hand and Marcia’s little hand stealing up to 
meet each other. 

“ If Doris could only go with me ! ” said 
Marcia then, wistfully. 

“ See there now, how great minds move along 
in the same channels,” said the Major. “ That 
same idee come to me when I was planning away 
off in Denver; an’ I talked to Miss Vane, the 
lady that keeps that school an’ she said it 


MARCIA'S GREAT-UNCLE. 


81 


would be too bad not to fix it up fer Doris 
to come along too ! I told her this Doris of 
ours was wild as a colt ; but she said that didn’t 
make no difference, for she liked smart, snappy- 
little gals. She said she made great ladies of 
’em. So, Doris, as I’ve talked with your pa 
afore you was waked up in your little bed along 
with Marshy, you’d best git your Saratogy out, 
an’ go to packin’ it so as to go along with 
Marshy. An’ the part of the expense your pa 
can’t afford to pay, I’ll be responsible fer, seein’ 
as I had such good luck sellin’ a little mine 
over on Windy Mountain while I was gone 
to Denver. And the condition on which I’ll 
let you both go an’ leave me is that you both 
strike a bee-line for Cloud Haven the day school 
is out next summer, an’ that you both stay here 
until time to go back to school in the fall.” 

The two little girls sat on the side of the 
Major’s couch, facing each other, silent. They 
had the feeling that such little girls have after 
they have been reading a fine firs1>class fairy 
tale. With a fine first-class fairy tale, the more 
wonderful and breathless it is the more truly 
real it seems to you, and for a long time you 
do not care to talk about it. 

At last said Doris, “ Marcia, what fun it 
would be?” 

Marcia looked big-eyed and frightened. Still, 
at last, she smiled at Doris. 

“ And of course, when you’re here, I’ll make 
you wash all the dishes and keep the cabin like 


82 


MARCIA AND THE MAJOR. 


a new pin, on the theory that little gals shouldn’t 
grew up ignorant of keepin’ house,” went on the 
Major, brushing away a happy sort of a big 
tear. 

Big Jed Thorpe had gratefully agreed to the 
Major’s plan, and early in the following week 
he took Marcia and Doris to their new and 
beautiful home in Denver. It had been ar- 
ranged that Jed should then hasten back to 
Cloud Haven and spend the winter with the 
Major, who had been left in the care of Lem 
Hall while he was gone. 

Marcia’s first letter to her guardian came soon 
— the Major had arranged with little Marcia 
that she was to call him “ Guardian ” all his 
life. 

Dear Guardian : — 

We got here all right, and Doris’s father 
took good care of us all the way. Doris had never been on 
the cars before, and she thought it was fine. She thinks 
Denver is a wonderful place, and so do I. We like Miss 
Vane a hundred times as much as you did. Doris and I 
have a lovely room together ; but it is not any cosier than 
the cabin at Cloud Haven, way up on Old Baldy, where we 
are going to have such good times next summer. We have 
to study hard, because Doris and I never studied before 
like the other girls; but we don’t mind that, only Doris 
says she would like to fly out of the window sometimes 
and fly on up to Cloud Haven and back. We talk about 
your poor leg every night. Doris says she don’t think that 
her father will wash the dishes as clean as we washed 
them, and she says for you to be sure to tell him to scald 
the dish-cloths every day, and remember to shower the 
geraniums every Saturday morning. We both think that 
you are awful good, and that you have been awful good to 
both of us. I think of you when I take out that piece of 
poetry you gave me to learn. I know it all now. I will 


MARCIA'S GREAT-UNCLE. 


83 


write the last verse for you, in my letter, for I don’t know 
that you ever learned it. I’m afraid you will miss it in 
your pocket-book. 

“ If any watchful thought of ours 
Can make some soul the stronger, 

If any cheery smile of ours 
Can make its brightness longer, 

Then let us speak that thought to-day 
With tender eyes a-glowing, 

So God may grant some weary one 
Shall reap from our glad sowing.” 

I have said all of the verses to Miss Vane, and she says 
they are very nice, and that I am reaping from the kind- 
ness you sowed when you took me in the way you did. I 
am to speak them in school next Friday. Doris sends 
love. So good-by, dear Guardian, from both your little 
girls. Love to Don and Mr. Jed Thorpe. 

Marcia. 

& 

Doris. 








Bept 


10 1801 




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AUG 30 1901 













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